I worked some major deep work on a clients hip, and a week later she said she experienced pain in the peroneal (lateral) side of her calf and she had NEVER experienced it before. I told her I thought it could have been the distributioncaused by hip relief created a more even effort in her leg muscles, but gave her calves more a of a workload than they were used to at the same. Am I correct?<br><br>This also brought to the mind question of what are the typical domino effects with deep tissue/myofascial work throughout the entire body? And to bring control into the picture, do you work deep to superficial or vice versa for a more even, predictable release?

I'm not sure of your other questions, but I would suggest that you do as much myofascial work as you can (at least 20-25 minutes) before going for deeper tissues. Doing otherwise might cause pain, discomfort, and damage to the area. In addition, you need to sink into the deeper through the superficial. The safest way to accomplish that is by myo work.

and of course, it's all connected ----- after deep work anywhere, I always try to save time to flush the whole limb. <br><br>The myofascial warming is so critical to our work --- and I find that I have to educate my clients not to expect me to work aggressively without it. Some clients want us to dive in without warming and I just can't or won't. <br><br>I am learning to coach my clients after deep work to sit up slowly, and stand slowly, and move even more slowly til they see what shifts there may be in posture and gait from our work. <br><br>Linda B. in NC

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Another thing to remember when working deep and when doing myo work...it's always a good idea to do some form of stretch be it active, passive, or a combination partially in order to allow the muscles worked to reset their proprioceptors.

I can work really deep and most of my clients like it- they don't have aches the following day or if they do, by the 3rd day they have so much relief the ache was worth it.<br><br>Anyway, when I was starting out, I had one woman who each time wanted me to go deeper and deeper and I ended up telling the salon owner :"I just can't work any deeper. I think she just likes it to hurt. If she reschedules, I am going to have my friend come and do her massage, okay?" This woman was divorced and a self-described "fuss-pot" who I think just couldn't ever enjoy anything- you have to pay for your pleasure sort of think. I mention the divorce because I think that either her inability to enjoy life wore out her spouse, or her spouse never let her enjoy life.<br><br>I left the job shortly after- that was 5 years ago, I hope she has learned to "let loose"! <br><br>Oh, and I agree with flushing the limb, going gentle to deep and then gentle again (the flushing part) and that there can be a "domino" effect. I think much of my work is really on breaking adhesions even though the client thinks that what I am doing is working out "knots in the muscles".

I have found a very similar thing. I noticed that there was a certain "type" of female massage client. It was almost as if they recognized that it was okay to have "me" time and get a massage, but darnit, they were NOT going to enjoy it! They almost had to hurt in order to feel like it was okay to take that time.

Most men that want deep work in the same way, I think, have seemed to be under the impression that because they're men, they have to appear "tough" regardless of what they actually want.

But that's a very small percentage of my client list (and clients like that either tend to start letting themselves enjoy the work or go elsewhere) and as I can't really read their minds... well.. maybe they do enjoy deep work and pain. *shrugs*